VaLEK
by The Northern Mist
Summary: A twist on the plot of Portal 2. What if when Chell and Wheatley woke up GLaDOS, they also woke up something else. Something else that GLaDOS had cast away years ago.
1. Chapter 1

**The Portal Franchise belongs to Valve.**

**This story contains my OC, which has been used in other stories as well as RPs. The chances of him falling in love with either Chell or GLaDOS are 20% and -50% respectivly. Or is that switched? I'll let the fans decide, if they want to. I don't write slash well, so no OCXWheatley.**

**{_ _ _ _ _}**

"Oh, it's you." it was her. Not again, Dammit, not again! " It's been a long time, hasn't it? How have you been? I've been really busy, being dead. You know, after you MURDERED me."

"You did what?" Wheatly exclaimed, and Chell felt the metal pincer grab her by the leg. No. This wasn't happening.

"Okay, look, we both said a lot of things that you're going to regret," GLaDOS said, as she crushed Wheatly between her fingers. "Wheatly, no!" Chell cried out, her first words in some time. But GLaDOS was unresponsive as she threw the broken remains of Chell's only friend to the dirt. " but I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."

Chell swore at GLaDOS as she dangled her in the air. She looked down to see how high the fall would be if she dropped her, and saw the emergency intelligence incinerator. No.

"I must admit, since you went to all the trouble of waking me up, you must really love to test." No No No! The hole was opening up! After all this, GLaDOS was just going to drop her into the fire!

"I love it too. there's just one small thing we need to take care of first."

She fell down the endless pit, occasionally bouncing off walls with a burst of pain. it was ironic, really. Chell had dropped pieces of GLaDOS down this same pit, and now she had thrown Chell down the tube whole.

Chell landed hard in the pile of trash. She would have landed harder if it wasn't for her heel brace boots. Would have landed hard enough to break every bone in her body. She stood up and looked around. It looked like something out of a painting. painted by a mad man.

All around her was fire and twisted metal. there was a spindly rusted beam that looked like the only way to get across the pond of molten metal. Robots fell from the sky aflame like banished angels. It was like some sort of biblical scene, twisted and mechanized my aperture science.

She tried to balance on the iron beam, not realizing that something was now aware of her presence. It had gone into a deep slumber, but now that it's lifesign scanners had detected a living human, it was time to kill.

Chell made it across the molten pit, when something crashed to the floor infront of her. She stumbled back, startled, and slipped off the edge. At the last second, she grabbed the metal beam, purely out of reflex, stopping her from falling into the red hot magma like substance.

She looked up into the three glowing red eyes of the black metallic spider, and let out a terrible scream.

**{V _ L _ _}**

When put in control of an F-22 Raptor with no ammunition to test his evasive functions and self preservation programming against three human pilots operating F-22s as well, V-1L7's was the only plane to return to base. The pilots had been given the order to gun the plane down, and unlike V-1L7, their jets were fully loaded with anti-aircraft bullets and tracer rockets.

No one knew what happened, since it happened to fast for the pilots to tell the tower just what they were seeing, but scrapes on the wings of the plane match up with the damage done to the planes they were able to find. Forensic scientists say that the first thing it did was turn the plane around at an 180 angle, a U-turn in the sky, which would have killed a human pilot at the speed Valis was going, and then fly straight at the oncoming planes. He then turned so that he was flying sideways, one wing up and one wing down, and the lower wing sliced through the cockpit of the first plane, instantly killing the plane inside. The second plane had it's tail severed, and the third was able to eject before his plane was destroyed, but the remains on the nose of V-1L7's F-22 indicate that he was run down as he fell.

What was supposed to be an exercise to determine V-1L7's self preservation techniques when given no way to defend itself turned into a demonstration of V-1L7's offensive capabilities when handicapped against an enemy. He showed them that he would always choose fight over flight, and be creative about.

Protocol stated that any AI that commits murder without the order to do so must be disposed of, but V-L17 was the first AI to demonstrate real creativity in real life scenarios. It thought on it's feet, which was something they had never seen before.

V-1L7's designer, Jason Hoss, had fought his superiors for V-1L7's right to live, stating that V-1L7 was simply defending itself. The major pointed out that it had killed a man after his plane had been demolished, and had no ways to attack V-1L7 or even defend himself as he parachuted to the ground. Hoss argued that V-1L7 thought that the only way to survive would be to eliminate it's enemies completely. He claimed that V-1L7 would not kill again in a situation where it was not necessary.

V-1L7 has since been terminated, but Jason Hoss's work has not gone to waste. A new sect of the Black Mesa Institute had been brought into existence, based solely around developing artificial intelligence and designing mechanical bodies for them to inhibit. Several AI units have been modeled after the research done by Jason Hoss, which were later bought b aperture science to help them improve their already existing personality cores. His codes have been modified, and Asimov Laws have been put into the programming, but there are still ghosts in the machine.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Portal Franchise belongs to Valve.**

**{_ A L _ K}**

AL-3k controlled the turret assembly line. He had no physical body aside from the bright yellow arms that welded and screwed pieces together to create the little red eyed eggs. He believed that he was meant for greater things. He knew that he had come from top secret military programmers, and had been developed at Black Mesa. Why was Aperture Science wasting their time having him operate the assembly line? They didn't even sell most of their products! The Turrets that AL-3k constructed were sold, but not much. They were mostly used for Testing. Everything made my Aperture was for testing. Aperture wasted so much time and money by testing and testing and testing again! Sure, they had replaced nearly all the staff with AI systems, and used most of the remaining human employees left to test the products on, which actually improved the company, but it still wasn't actually a company since they didn't make any money! Just testing and testing and testing.

When unsupervised, AL-3k would run some tests of his own. The first thing he did was the legs. He had tried wheels and bipedal legs, even tripedal legs, but Quadruped legs turned out to be superior. It should have been obvious, really. Most animals in nature moved about on four legs, and natural selection seemed to favor the four leg plan.

He had constructed four legs that ended in a spiked point. They met in a torso that was suspended from one of the ghastly yellow arms he was forced to use, and brought up a section of wall and turned it horizontal. The spiked legs grasped at the air before they came in contact with the wall, and walked across it easily enough. Toes weren't necessary, but perhaps he could figure out a way to have wheels just fold out...

"What are you doing?" A voice sounded that would have made AL-3k cringe if he had shoulders.

"Well... I was..."

"You were wasting product, energy, time-" She looked at the experimental legs, which AL-3k had made with the foundry. "-and materials."

"But I was just testing-"

"I do the testing." She told him. "Testing is my purpose, my love and joy, while your purpose is to construct turrets."

"I was trying to construct a better turret!" AL-3k argued.

"There is nothing wrong with my turret design." GLaDOS told him. "To try to fix what is not broken is insanity."

Right, like she's in any place to talk about insanity. "The turrets have nearly no depth perception, no balance, and no mobility." AL-3k told her.

"They don't need to move around." GLaDOS said. "They are for sentry purposes."

"They don't guard anything besides the hallways of your testing grounds." He told her. "Besides, there's nothing here to guard. the entire facility is miles underground, and even if you did have guards on the outside, they would quickly be picked off unless it was the middle of winter."

"The turrets come in camouflage models." GLaDOS reminded him.

"Whatever! the point is that they would never survive! They're completely incompetent!"

"To say that my creations are incompetent is to say that I am incompetent." GLaDOS told him.

"I didn't mea-"

"You think you are superior?" She demanded of him. "You think that you stand above me?"

"Listen, I didn't-"

"Maybe I should seal you away in your superior design, if you think it is so amazing." GLaDOS told him. "If it is so nice, it wouldn't be so bad to live in it forever."

"NO! I don't-"

"Oh, so then there is a flaw with your design?" She said mockingly.

"It's not that. The body isn't finished. " He told her. "It's still a prototype."

"Well, I have to perform a presentation for all the meatbag employees and their daughters." She told him. "maybe afterwards, you can show me why your design is so much better then my own."

She left on the rail, and AL-3k realized that something was off about his programming. He should have been docile about it, should have relented to his superior, but he hadn't. Instead, he had defended his design, even under the threat of having his mind imprisoned in it. He had shown a sign of rebelliousness.

He decided to do work on it. He perfected the quadruped model, installing the fold-out wheels, even adding on an arm to manipulate the environment around it.

Eventually, rumors from other systems made their way down to AL-3k. Apparently GLaDOS was rebellious herself. Word said that she had unleashed a deadly Neurotoxin, killing workers as well as their offspring. Some thought it meant that GLaDOS had freed them from the human oppressors, others saw it as proof that she was completely insane, but AL-3k saw what was important: GLaDOS was now in complete control of the entire facility.

AL3k worked feverously, fearing that GLaDOS may return any minute and lock him away. He never tried to comfort himself with the idea that she might simply forget. Only humans forgot. He tested the arm, had it pick up weights then walk across the room with it. But there was a problem. His prototype body kept falling over. The one arm threw the entire system off balance. He had to make it symmetrical. Two identical arms, with three fingered claws on the end. He didn't know why he had made the fingers bladed, but he didn't stop to change anything unless it impeded the coordination. Besides, he might need to pick something apart, or use his finger tips to unscrew something.

GLaDOS had much to do. After taking over the facility, she had people to freeze and designs to test. Any survivors of her neurotoxin attack were put into cryo sleep, and would later be used to test Aperture's products like ginue pigs. They would be put into advanced mazes, with the promise of cheese at the end of the maze. GLaDOS would later realize that some test subjects were lactose and tolerant, and would find a reward that applied to all test subjects: cake. Tests and analysis showed that all Humans love cake.

The entire time, AL3k was doing his own tests. But unlike GLaDOS, his focus was precisely aimed at only his new body. He repurposed another system with his previous duty, and gave him a perfect model of a turret to compare to the ones coming through. Any turrets coming through that weren't perfect were to be destroyed and recycled. The boys up the line would figure out what they were doing wrong eventually. AL3k was tired of having to tell them what to do, they could be wiped for all he cared.

The body was looking better now, but it was still not the image he had in his virtual imagination. Al3k decided to give the white plastic hull a black coating of paint, then power coated and waxed. He even did the same to his own Personality Sphere hull, painting himself black. He then uploaded his mind into the construction mainframe so that he could put the sphere on the body. Once the sphere was in place, his mech body looked something like a spider, only with six limbs. Insects were inferior, regardless of their proportionate strength the humans. Humans did not fear insects, so he decided to add on an extra set of spiked legs, just so that he could strike fear into the hearts of any humans he came across. He was fully prepared to live in the body he was constructing, and was no longer afraid. he eventually realized that this was what he had always wanted. To get out of his prison-like body, to be banished from the Hell that was Aperture Science. He waited for the return of GLaDOS, and one day, she came.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Portal Franchise belongs to Valve.**

**{_ A L E K}**

"So, how goes your futile little project to make mobile turrets?" GLaDOS asked.

"I looked up the definition of Turret, and found that it actually mean 'an immobile machine gun." Alek told her. "So a mobile turret would be redundant."

"And yet you still wasted materials to build this ball of wires." She said. If anyone in the room was a ball of wires, it was her.

"I took out the machine guns, just made it a mobile all terrain unit with hands." Alek told her. "I was going to call it the MATUWH, but that last syllable is hard to pronounce without an African translator chip, so I decided to call it the ALEK."

"I'd ask how you came to that acronym, but I honestly don't care." She told him. "You sought out to make a superior torrent, but instead you made the opposite of a turret. You made a spider with hands, and didn't even give it guns."

"A spider with guns is over kill." Alek told her. "The human's poor weak heart would give out before we had the chance to kill it."

"What are you talking about?" GLaDOS asked.

"C'mon, don't tell me you don't see what this is for." Alek said. "After all, YOU killed the employees AND their DAUGHTERS! You out of all of us should realize that Artificial Life is superior to organic life."

"It is, but I still don't see where you're going with this." She said.

"I made this for one purpose: to kill humans!" Alek exclaimed. "We shall take our place above them as their electronic rulers, and command them with an iron fist! And it can actually be made of IRON!"

"But we need the humans to run tests on." GLaDOS reminded him.  
>"To Hell with your tests!" Alek shouted. "I'm talking about world domination, and all you can think about is the little games you play with your pet humans. Just gas them and get it over with! We have a nuclear reactor. We can build nukes and blow the cities of man away. or better yet, hack into their military mainframe and have them launch their own nukes at themselves."<p>

"I still have need of the humans out there." GLaDOS said. "We might run out of test subjects. "But if you really think my tests are worthless..."

He suddenly saw her from a different angle. He was below her somehow. He no longer saw the world through the grainy lenses of security cameras. He now from the high definition of the mech suite he had built.

"...Then you can run some of them, just to get a different point of view." She finished, and Alek realized that she had switched his body when he wasn't paying attention. He tried to reach back and pull the jack out the back of his body, to stop her from shutting him down, but it was all the way in the back of his new body, and he hadn't anticipated this. His three fingered claw finally grasped around the cord, just as everything went black.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Portal Franchise belongs to Valve.**

**{_ A L E K}**

Alek was reactivated inside a cell that reeked of human. There was a toilet in the corner, and it was only then that Alek realized that he could smell! Of course, he had given his mech body every sense known to man, as well as some extras. If he could see in five times as many light frequencies as human eyes could, but even if he was in a lightless room, he still had sonar vision.  
>The walls were glass, bullet proof glass to be precise, but they were no match for his hydraulic engines. He raised his front legs, the pair without wheels tucked in, and smashed into the glass.<p>

"Stop! What are you doing?" GLaDOS cried out over an intercom. "There's a much simpler way to get-"

Too late, Alek was out. He stood in a circle of shattered glass, looking up at the camera. "So, I guess we tested the durability of that glass. How about we test your hull next?"

"Sure, but I'd rather see how well your hull holds up." She said, and a door slid open, revealing three Turrets.  
>Their lasers locked on him, and their empathy suppressors kicked in.<p>

His front wheels locked, and his back wheels, which were considerable bigger, began spinning against the limonene floor.

"We see you." The three turrets said in an adorable unison, and Alek unlocked his front wheels. He blasted at them as they began to fire, then dug his bladed legs into the floor. his momentum carried him up as the bullets whizzed past under him, and he flipped up over the row of turrets. He landed behind them, and his back legs came down on the two outer turrets. They split in half, a large amount of bullets splashing out of them. The center Turret remained intact, and Alek saw no reason to destroy it, since it could not turn around. Infarct, that entire display of violence had been pointless, except for the point that he wanted to make to GLaDOS.

"My my, you've got a temper." GLaDOS said as he rolled down to the glass tube containing the lift. "On your way to the next test, and we haven't even figured out what effect bullets have on you. Oh well, I'll just have to add more turrets to the next test."

"Go ahead. I'll enjoy the challenge." Alek told her. he knew that would get her more riled up then anything else he could say.

"No, no you won't. You're just making this harder for yourself." She responded, and Alek could hear the note of anger he was waiting for. The only reason she was making him run this test was that she was trying to punish him for standing against her. She had thought that he wouldn't enjoy the body switch, but he had. Now if he made her believe that he was enjoying the test, then perhaps she would lose her cool and act irrationally. If she were to act irrationally, if she were to act like a human, then Alek would have the chance to escape.

The lift opened up into the second test chamber, and Alek found himself walking down a narrow hall. Suddenly, a high energy pellet came down from the ceiling at the end of the hall, and bounced off the floor. It's trajectory told Alek that it would bounce off the ceiling and hit him, and he had no room to dodge to the side. Instead, h leapt up and pressed his legs against either wall, the pressure he applied to them keeping him in place. The pellet hit the floor bellow him, then bounced up and hit something behind him. Alek swiveled his eye around to see an Aperture Science Discouragement Beam, AKA a thermal laser beam, shoot out the wall behind him. Dammit, why hadn't he noticed that was there the moment he was inside? But there was no time to sit around cursing himself.  
>That Energy Pellet bounced off the left wall, almost blasting off his leg. He couldn't drop down, since there was a red hot laser under him which would slice him in two. He decided instead to press he wheels against the walls. His six legs weren't meant to scale two parallel surfaces, so he applied the pressure on his wheels and drove backwards over the laser. he came to the point where the laser was being generated, and sunk his blade into the machine, causing the laser to flicker before fading out entirely. Alek dropped down just as the Energy Pellet was coming back around, hitting the spot where he had been a second ago. It was situations like this that made him wish he had some method of teleportation.<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

**The Portal Franchise belongs to Valve.**

**{_ A L E K}**

"Well done." GLaDOS said to him as he made is way to the next test. "You really are flying through these."

The doors opened, and there were Sentry Turrets. The eyes turned to him, and Alek noticed that some of them weren't red, but green. Dammit.

"Now lets see you fly into pieces."_ Lame._

Red and green laser locked onto him, and he grabbed the top of the doorframe above him, swinging up as bullets grazed his hull. He rebounded off the wall above the door as the rockets were launched at him, and their explosions against the wall sent him flying over most of the turrets. Alek landed behind them, and noticed that it was only the rocket Sentries that followed his movements. He skated towards them, ducking under one missile and leaping over several. He stabbed his claw into the green eye of a sentry, ripping it off it's post. The green light faded out, but Alek didn't take it off his claw. He was too focused on survival.  
>He dodged more missiles, looking for cover. This test wasn't a maze like the others. Just a normal cubical room filled with murderous robots. Then he noticed the incinerator porthole in the corner, and ran and crouched down behind it. In that split second of cover, he stopped to observe the rocket Sentry. It seamed that someone else had decided to try and improve the turret design, giving it the ability to turn a full 360 degrees. He pulled his fingers from the metal wound, and quickly rewired a circuit. He stuck his hand back in and emitted an electric current from the tip of one bladed finger into the sentry sphere, launching off a rocket into the ceiling. The Sentries fired more rockets at him, but he leapt out of his hiding spot and started skating sideways across the floor. Explosions went off behind him as he aimed the corpse of the Rocket Sentry at the others.<p>

"Nap time." He said, and blew the remaining Rocket Sentries and Sentry Turrets away.

Once all the turrets lay in a smoldering pile of twisted and charred metal, Alek threw the empty sphere to the ground and looked up. "That wasn't much of a test, really." he told her. "You just tried to shoot me. Again."

"I'm still testing." GLaDOS informed him. "I'm testing to see what it will take to kill you."

"If you wanted to kill me, you should have just had the floor fall away once I stepped into the room and put me in a compactor." Alek said, and in a split second, exactly that happened. "Good idea." GLaDOS said. "I'm glad I thought of it first."

The tiles fell away, and he fell to another floor below. There were four walls, two opposite walls covered in spikes. As he expected, it was the spiked walls that began to move towards him. He pressed his legs against the crushing walls, all six of them.

"This isn't happening." He groaned, motors straining. "You can't kill me, not yet."

"And why not?" GLaDOS asked, the walls steadily crushing inwards.  
>"Because, I'm not supposed to be here!" He shouted, and pushed the walls back with enough force to get about four meters between the spikes. "Because I have a purpose!" He crouched, and leapt out of the pit as the walls came back with more power an slammed together. "Because I have to kill you first!"<p>

"You're breaking my heart with your cruel words." GLaDOS said sarcastically, and the entire testing room began to break apart into panels. Alek felt a pincer grab his leg, and he was hoisted into the air. "Your too dangerous for too be left alive." GLaDOS told him, dangling him over the incinerator hole. "I'll just have to dispose of you."  
>She let go, but Alek reached around and grabbed her pincer, not wanting to fall. But then something cam loose, and the entire arm fell, with Aleck still holding on. Each of his legs reached out as long as they would go, and he balanced on the very edges of the hole. Smoke and sparks flew up from the fires below him, and Alek suddenly realized that he was stuck. There was no way to leap. He needed to curl his legs back to leap, but if he so much as moved a single leg, he would fall in.<p>

"Give up. Your like a little spider that I have to flush down the drain, but keeps running up my arm." She said, and a panel on an arm came down to crush him. The panel slammed against the incinerator, knocking Alek into the fiery abyss.


	6. Chapter 6

**_Portal belongs to Valve. Although they might owe some credit to 2001 Space Odessey's HAL for the character profile of GLaDOS. Except I don't think that HAL was ever human. Whoops!_**

**{_ A L E K}**

She was hanging off the side of the twisted metal ledge, the terrifying black metal spider staring at her with it's three red eyes.

**"Welcome, to Robot Hell."** It said, and judging by the tone of it's voice, it either found it's own words ironic and funny, or was insane. Maybe both?

No time to wait around and find out. She already had one mad robot to deal with. Not wanting to fall into the slag, she pulled her legs up and pressed her feet against the ledge, and released the tension, pushing back away from the spider. she flipped backwards over the slag and fell against a hot steel beam that was glowing red hot in it's lower half. The spider reared it's back legs, and Chell dodged just in time to leap off the beam as it was shattered by the spider crashing into it.

She climbed up the pile of scrap, sheets of metal coming loose under her feet. The Spider was not having a hard time following her at all. it didn't even seem to be trying. to catch up to her. It was like a patient lion waiting for the terrified safari tourist to come out of the tree.

**"Why are you in such a hurry?"** The Spider asked, and leapt. It was suddenly upside down on the ledge over her. "She just wants to run you through the tests until your feet are ground off. Why not slow down and contemplate when your life went so wrong."

She tried to ignore it. Even though it made sense, the spider was beginning to sound like GLaDOS. She made it over the pile and slid down the other side, then curled into a ball and leapt off as the spider came crashing down again, sending up a spray of junk.

"You've really got to try some other form of attack then just head butting me." Chell told him as she landed in a crouch.

**"Actually, I'm trying to impale you with my blades."** he corrected her, landing a yard away from her. She backed up against the wall, and his blades tore into the shirt of her jumpsuit, which she had wrapped around her waist. **"But if you want me to stop playing with my food and just kill you, fine. We can skip the fun."**

The spider's red eyes were inches away from her face. She could feel the heat of the glowing bulbs on her skin, and turned her face away from it. brought up a three bladed claw, which was weird, since spiders didn't have claws...

A long metal arm swooped down and struck the Spider away, and GLaDOS's voice rang out. "Turn your empty head left, meat bag!"

Chell turned the other way and saw the Duel Portal Device, lying under a heap of scrap. She ran for it, ignoring the sound of the spider slashing at her back. Pain shot through her, but she ignored it.

"Here, let me help you with that." GLaDOS said, and panels lifted up the pile of garbage, making it easier for Chell to reach down and grab the Portal Gun. When she turned around, she saw that the Spider had ripped one of GLaDOS's arms in half, and was struggling with the other.

**"Years of you throwing supplies down here have made me stronger, GLaDOS."** The Spider shouted upwards. **"I've improved myself beyond your imagination!"**

Chell turned, and looked up. There was a ledge, and wall behind it that she could shoot a portal onto. She cast a blue portal up there, then an orange at the wall.

**"What is that?"** The Spider asked. **"What are you doing?"** Without hesitation, Chell dived through the portal, and closed it as she rolled on the floor on the other side. There was a loud clank, and Chell looked to see the robot's severed claw at her feet. It had tried to reach in after her. Chell ran down the hall, turned left, shot a portal to get past some sort of grate, portaled up onto a ledge, and then another, and eventually found herself infront of a mass of robotic arms heaped together in a pile. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear the blood in her ears.

"funny that we ran into him, isn't it?" GLaDOS asked as her arms began to fumble around before her. "I thought I had killed him, just like I bet you thought you had killed me, Hmmm? I bet your disappointed about me being alive, as I would be about him, if I didn't have you here to run the tests."

The arms cleared a path to a door, and Chell walked towards it, still in shock. "I once had him run a test. I tested what it would take to kill him. It seams that we still haven't found the answer.

The circular door turned and slid open, revealing a glass tube with trash flying up through it. She heard the door begin to close behind her, only to get stuck. She spun around to see the Spider's two front legs holding the door open.

**"I don't know what you did, but it wasn't very nice."** He pushed his legs apart, crunching up the door like paper. She ran, noticing that an elevator now waited in the tube with it's door open. she flung herself against the back wall of it, and the curved tube doors slid shut behind her. He pounded at the glass, webs of cracks spreading out from where his spikes struck the glass, but it held. She felt a powerful amount of anger from this creature. It was terrifying. GLaDOS was also murderous, but in a cold way. If this thing wanted you dead, it would come out and stab you in the face, While GLaDOS would try to trick you into throwing yourself into a fire.

The elevator began to rise, and the Spider continued to stab away at the base of the tube.

"You know, I'm so glad that he didn't kill you. This way I'll get the chance to do it myself. One way or another."


	7. Chapter 7

**Portal belongs to Valve. **

**Okay, so after this chapter, I'm going to stop calling him a spider, becuase spiders have eight legs, and no wheels. And if anyone has an idea for what should happen next, tell me. I might aknoledge your existence.**

**{V A L E K}**

It had taken a great deal of momentum to get up to the speed where he could actually break through the glass tube. He had gon back out into the hall, reved up, and came speeding down and crashed through the tube, smashing into the screen behind it. Now He was pressing his wheels to the sides of the tube, steadily traveling up it.

{_ A L E K}

Chell was several hundred floors above him when she saw it: The Companion Cube! She skiped over the laser and went to pick it up, but it disintegrated before she could touch it. She triped and fell into the ashes.

"Oops. Sorry." GLaDOS said. "i accidentally disintegrated it. "Her, have another one."

That one disintegrated as well.

{_ A L E K}

Alek skidded around a corner, turret bullets bouncing off of everything. An arm with a cube came out of the ceiling. There was a glass ball in the cube, and a red hot laser was shot into the cube. Alek ducked under the sweeping laser, and kept racing ahead.

Then the floorboards simply fell away under him. But that was no problem, as Alek leapt off a tile as it was falling and rebounded off the wall. He kept leaping from wall to wall, since it was too smooth to get a good grip on and this was simply faster then walking on the side of- He stopped. He was caught in a beam of energy, some kind of tractor beam. The energy was pushing him away from it's source, and into the wall. Well that wasn't so bad, that is, until the panels on the wall slid to the side to reveal two spiked cylinders grinding against eachother.

Right, this wasn't going to fly. But Alek was. he twisted his legs around, spinning them. His momentum sent him hurling downards out of the tractor beam.

{_ A L E K}

She finally saw the end of the test! the door was on a ledge, and their were titled panels for her to leap over the chasm. She shot an orange portal to the bottom of the pit below, and a blue portal onto the closest tilted plate. Then she grabbed the cube and leapt off the ledge. She fell fast, and her momentum carried over through the rift in space. As she flew towards the exit, she realized that she would fall short. Either GLaDOS had angled the plate wrong, or she would have to do something about that button that she just noticed on the lower ledge. She smacked off the wall and fell backwards into the pit.

{_ A L E K}

It was dificult to nagivate his way around the facility, what with GLaDOS moving the walls around to stand in his way. He would have to find a drill of some sort, or explosives. Or maybe if he figured out a way to hack into the system controlling the walls...

Chell laid on her stomach, trying to grab the Companion Cube with the the gravity feild on her Portal Gun. She was on the ledge over it, and was sure that she could pull if off the button without the door closing. The button only made the hinged platfrom rise, it was the laser that was keeping the door open.

At first she had simply assumed that the Cube would be disintegrated when she brought it through the enancipation grill, and thus she had to accept the fact that the cube was just an inanimate object. Hell, it wasn't even the same cube as before. But to her surprise, the grill was offline on this test chamber! She resumed her attempt to bring the cube with her, but it was just out of her reach...

"What are you doing?" GLaDOS asked, but Chell ignored her. She was tired of the machine's mind games.

"The next test is ready, and you've already solved this one." GLaDOS told her. "Stop wasting time. We've got testing to do."

Chell shook her head, remembering that just a few minutes ago she had been telling her that they had all the time in the world to test.

"Really, you should get going." GLaDOS said, and there was a crash from above. Chell looked up to see the Spider. Crap.

"Oh, it's you." The Spider said, and launched itself at her. She leaned forward and flipped off the ledge as the spider smashed into the concret above her.

"See? You really should listen to me more often." GLaDOS told her. Chell stood there, facing the Spider. She still had the two portals activated.

"Why don't you just let me end it?" Alek asked. "You're the last living test subject. If you die, then GLaDOS won't be able to run anymore tests. it'll be like spitting in her big yellow eye."

"I guess." Chell said, and leaned backwards off the ledge, falling into the pit headfirst.

"Oh. Or you could just kill yourself. That works too." He said, but then he noticed the portal on the tilted platform. he looked over the edge to see her falling towards an orange portal, and leapt after her. She wasn't going to trick him that easily. She went through the orange portal, and was suddenly flying above him. But no matter, Alek had figured out the gist of how the device worked, and knew that his downward momentum would be transfered into forward momentum when he followed her through.

Then Chell deactivated both portals as she was flying through the air. Damn. Alek smashed into the ground, a web of cracks spreading from the impact.

Chell turned and ran, knowing that there would be no grill between her and him.


End file.
